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Stories · 2
New York Liberty sit 4.0 games behind in Eastern Conference — within striking distance with a 26-18 record — a 59% win rate across 44 games.
Coming off a win — the momentum is pointing in the right direction.
The next game is at home against Minnesota Lynx. Every game at this stage of the season carries playoff implications — execution on both ends of the floor will be the deciding factor.
Minnesota's Lynx hold a 33-11 record — a 75 percent win rate — entering Sunday's first-round best-of-three at Target Center, and New York, seeded eighth at 26-18, travels there as a clear underdog. That gap is real: the Liberty closed the regular season with back-to-back home losses to Atlanta Dream — the 84-95 loss on September 21 and the 65-83 loss on September 23 — surrendering a combined 178 points across those two games. Per the NY Post, the series is a rematch of the 2024 WNBA Finals, and New York has spent the season adjusting lineups and experimenting with defensive coverages under a first-year head coach, a process the Post describes as 44 games of figuring themselves out. Compounding that: Satou Sabally and Elizabeth Balogun are out, and the Post reports Breanna Stewart sat out the regular-season finale with left knee soreness, though she is expected to play Sunday. A depleted rotation against the West's top seed, on the road, is the current verified picture. Whether Stewart's knee holds across a short series is the one variable that could change the calculus.